Homely
by aces
Summary: The Doctor, still in that alien situation.


Title: Homely  
  
Author: aces  
  
Category: Oh, it's another no-man's-land, don't you know...  
  
Rating: G  
  
Summary: More of the Doctor in that alien situation...still in that Amnesia Earth Arc...  
  
Warnings/Disclaimers: The BBC will forever and always own the Doctor; I'm just borrowing him to make him unhappy for a while. I'm such an awful person. No money is made, no copyright infringement intended, for entertainment purposes only.  
  
Notes: I don't know why, but the general theme/idea from "Grounded" was still holding me, so this is something of the same...but different. I just find the whole idea of the Doctor stuck on Earth, forced to live a "normal" life, absolutely fascinating apparently. Yeah, I'm strange.  
  
HOMELY  
  
He was a strange man. Not an open man. Perhaps not unusual in a day and age when children were specifically told over and over to avoid strangers and doors were never left unlocked in the city (and sometimes even in the country, when you could find the country amid the cities), but he was particularly elusive. People started getting to know their neighbors after a while, at least their little characteristics, their mannerisms, their habits--that couple could always be heard arguing anytime after midnight; that pensive-looking young man was out of his apartment by seven every morning, weekday and weekend, and back again by eight every evening; the nice old lady down the hall was always ready to give her neighbors a smile and played swing music surprisingly loudly on her CD player. One man trained himself to wake up every morning when he heard the shower squeal on next door.  
  
This one never played music loudly, and if he paced he had remarkably quiet floorboards. Even his plumbing seemed quieter than everyone else's. He left no openings for anyone to become acquainted with him, firmly if politely closing the walls of his flat in around him.  
  
He entered the lift and found himself going up with the woman who lived across the hall from him. She was a single mother of perhaps thirty, with a child of about four who wasn't with her at the moment. She smiled a greeting at him; he smiled politely back. He was an average height man, with long hair and a penchant for long dark coats. His eyes were blue and sad.  
  
"It's wonderful weather we're having, isn't it?" she asked brightly as the elevator jolted slightly before heaving itself into going up the five flights. "Especially so late in the year. You'd think it was still early autumn."  
  
He nodded. "We should enjoy it while it lasts," he agreed. He was tired, and his head ached slightly. He glanced at the counter and saw they'd just passed the second floor.  
  
"They've just opened a new Chinese restaurant down the street; have you noticed it?" He nodded without paying much attention. "I ate there yesterday; it's actually pretty good. D'you like Chinese food?"  
  
"Only when I'm in China," he replied absently. She blinked. The doors slid open. He gestured politely, a wide smile on his face that made his head pound more. "After you."  
  
She smiled at him a little uncertainly before walking out of the lift. He followed her the short distance down the corridor, then turned to his door, unlocking it. "Good day," he said to her kindly as he backed into his apartment, shutting the door firmly.  
  
"'Bye," she called after him and turned back to her own door, the encounter easily put out of her mind as her thoughts turned to what she could do with the broccoli for dinner this evening, and getting some work finished before she had to pick her daughter up from day care, and making sure to pay the electric bill before the end of the week.  
  
He sighed, dropping his keys on the table by the door. Conversations like that were sometimes fulfilling, sometimes exactly what he needed, because they were so utterly normal. They became vital, touchstones to a reality he couldn't quite blend into, helping him feel he could perhaps fit in somehow. But at other times they merely made him wistful. He wanted a *real* conversation, something meaningful, something that connected him to another person on some level. He vaguely remembered conversations with philosophers, with writers, with artists, with children, with college and high school students. He vaguely remembered conversations with *friends*.  
  
The ache in his head was increasing, perhaps in response to the bass he could now hear beating rhythmically, seeping through the floor from above. The living room was dark, the entire flat chilled and lifeless. He didn't feel like turning on any lights yet. He heard a train in the distance, plowing through the country, its whistle mournful and powerful, searching and sobbing for a lost loved one. Sometimes he lay awake at night, listening to that train whistle. It saddened him unbearably. Other times he lay awake at night, tossing and turning as he listened. It angered him; he wanted the train to keep its pain to itself.  
  
He wandered through the living room of the apartment, listening to the creaking of someone pacing above him, the settling of the building itself, the voices on a television next door. And, of course, the ever-present bass beat. The room wasn't as dark as it could be; he'd accidentally left the blinds on one of the windows open, so that streetlight filtered through in shafts of alternating light and dark, film noir, and his shadow loomed over the couch and coffee table, B-movie horror. He closed the blinds every night, because the stars hurt him, but sometimes he had to peek through and look up anyway, feel the pricks of diamond ice on his skin like sensation returning to a numbed limb.  
  
He made his way to the window and leant against the wall next to it, staring out through the blinds. He watched a car drive past, headlights on- -despite the unusual warmth, it still became dark early this time of year-- saw a couple pedestrians walk along the sidewalk, holding hands. The sky had a faint tint of red to it. Once that would have meant fires, cities burning; now it simply meant industrialization, that he wouldn't be able to see the stars tonight, no matter how clear the sky was. He leant his head against the cool wall next to the window and closed his eyes, listening to the cars whisper past outside and trying to shut out the indoor noises.  
  
Somewhere in the near distance, a church's bells started ringing. This area was full of church bells; he'd never really paid attention to them until a few weeks ago. At first he'd liked listening to them, liked the ghostlike chiming they made as they were carried to him on the wind, the half-real sound of fairy bells, but now it was beginning to drive him mad. They reminded him of Brigadoons, of Camelots, of ghost places that drifted on the edges of his mind but refused to come out of the shadows and show themselves to him, allow him to remember. He was beginning to worry that the church bells weren't really there, that no-one else heard them, that he was imagining them.  
  
A car turned onto the road directly in front of his apartment, its headlights flashing on him, and he winced away from the bright light, too much for his angry headache. He turned away from the window at last with a sigh, opening his eyes properly to survey the living room again. It was dusty. He was terrible about cleaning, but he spent very little time here. There was no point spending much time here.  
  
He wanted to look at the stars tonight. Perhaps he should drive out to the country, park by some field with a pair of binoculars. He might even get some fresh air out there, if he drove far enough away from the city. Perhaps he should just get in the car and drive until he ran out of gasoline or felt like stopping. But if he did that, he didn't think he would come back here. And he had to come back here. He had things to accomplish, he had things he couldn't leave behind for the landlord to get rid of. He had to stay.  
  
Another set of church bells rang somewhere in the distance, playing some distant hymn, jangling at the back of his mind and deepening the pain in his head. He rubbed at his face tiredly, looking again around the room. He was starting to hate this place. He glanced at the window and finally closed the blinds. No stars tonight, he decided gently. He didn't want sensation to return. 


End file.
